


Home Is Where The Heart Is

by orphan_account



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no blood on his hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is Where The Heart Is

There is no blood on his hands. The girl on the floor bled out hours ago, her blood flaky and brown, but he can feel it, warm and sticky and dripping from his fingertips. He rattles off the crime to Jack, how she was drained of blood, how he’d cut her open and pulled out her heart and let the blood leak into a little glass jar, and shuffles out of the room flicking his hands when he thinks no one can see. One of the other agents, Beverly watches him go, unsure whether or not to follow. She doesn’t.

When he gets in the car he’s shaking with fear or adrenaline or pleasure or some ungodly mix of the three. He slides into the drivers seat and brings his fingers up to the light, staring at the untainted flesh where blood is not, but even when he can see the absence of blood it’s still there, congealing between his fingers, not quite as warm but still so horrifically alive he can feel her heartbeat in every phantom drop. He brings a finger up to his mouth and salt and rust ghost over his tongue and he wants to scream around his bloodless fingers, scream the way she screamed all lovely in her Scooby-Doo pajamas and her fuzzy socks and her unraveling ponytail whipping at his face as she struggled in his arms. (but she didn’t, something whispers in the back of his head, because those were not his arms and this was not her blood, and he had not killed her. And something else whispers all breathy in his ear ‘oh, but you did, you did.’) His eyes snap open and he wakes up and yanks his fingers from his mouth, wiping the spit on his pants as he slams on the gas and tries to ignore how alive he feels.

When he gets to Hannibal’s house, Abigail’s already there and they’re eating dinner. They’ve just finished their first appetizer and Hannibal’s bringing out three bowls of tomato soup and laying a solid hand on his shoulder, his smile engulfing him with warmth until all his muscles relax and he lets himself be led to his chair. They’d set the table fro three, and Abigail’s already started eating, smiling over at him with red soup smudged in the corners of her lips like a vampire and a soft look in her eyes. Hannibal sits down at the head of the table and glances at him. “Try the soup, it’s delicious.”

He does, and smiles as the taste washes over him, creamy and sweet with an undertone of salt, and he does not compare it to blood, no matter how warm it makes him. When he looks up Hannibal’s relaxed visibly. “It is.” 

They eat their meals in peaceful silence, contemplating the artistry of the soup, and clapping like golf spectators when he brings out the meat-stuffed peppers, still crispy and deliciously rare, and he wonders if the killer ate her heart, knows he would have wanted to, all raw and visceral and so alive even separate from her, and when it’s time to go, he sighs, knowing when he goes home to sleep he’ll be visited by ghost after ghost after still-bleeding ghost. As he pulls on his shoes, Abigail stops him. “Stay.”

He looks up, and Hannibal’s standing in the kitchen’s darkened doorway, watching, always watching, with happiness or something like it shining in his strange alien eyes. He turns and walks into the next room, broad back eaten up by the black, and Abigail goes after, glancing over her shoulder with her big blue Bambi eyes and an inscrutable smile as she, too, steps into the room beyond, the tomato soup still smudged like blood or lipstick around her narrow mouth. He watches them fade, wonders what they do in that room every night, whether they’re having an discussing her father or are having an affair or are plotting a murder. The kitchen smells like apples and something he almost recognizes, and there are faint, warm murmurs coming from inside. He’s welcome to enter, their eyes had made that clear, but never has. He thinks about going home and going to sleep and choking on that little girl’s blood. He peels off his shoe and, the taste of salt on his lips, follows them into the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> so holy shit i just rewatched hannibal and this kinda exploded out of me in like 20 minutes.


End file.
